Working Together
to Make Our Communities Better
Kiwanis - Sponsored
Youth by John Gentry
According to Fred Webb of the Red Bluff, California,
Kiwanis Club, it doesn't get any better than this. Getting young people
involved in activities to help their community and school is gratifying
in many ways, and for Webb getting as many as possible involved is icing
on the cake. Now the club can claim sponsorship of a youth club in every
school in the local school district.
Taking the reigns of the club's Sponsored
Youth committee two years ago, Webb started making contacts with schools,
Kiwanis International office, and club members interested in assisting
with the project. Taking ideas from other clubs and exchanging information,
literally across the nation and around the world, sparked a whirlwind
of activity.
"I have 28 grandchildren of my own, and 9
great-grandchildren, so I have some experience working with children"
says Webb.
Now that the groups are in place (or very
nearly so), the work and the fun begins. The two Key Club schools are
Red Bluff High School and Mercy High School. These young people are a
great help to the Kiwanis in their projects, such as the Tour of Tehama
bicycle ride, pancake breakfast, concession stand sales and others. In
addition, these clubs will be the ushers for the upcoming Red Bluff Round-Up,
even going so far as assisting the handicapped with golf cart rides. There
have been park cleaning days, and the clubs provide tutoring for younger
children.
At the middle school level, the groups are
know as Builders clubs, and Webb has assisted all the middle schools in
starting one. The Builders work on school improvement which includes dances,
yard improvement, valentines sent to convalescent hospitals, and tutoring
elementary kids.
K-Kids, the elementary school clubs, are involved
in school improvement also with projects such as yard clean-up, particularly
bulletin boards, library day refreshments, and Grandparents Day activities.
Some of the organizations have become partners
with SERRF, Safe Education and Recreational for Rural Families. This is
an after school program that is a benefit for hundreds of kids each school
day.
Webb says, "My satisfaction is to see the
light turn on after they complete a project. To see the pride on their
faces and the way they stand and speak to each other is very gratifying
to me. Development means pride and more self-worth and confidence. They
have worthwhile projects with great results, they run their own meetings.
I tell you, I am just so proud of all our clubs. It's like they are my
own children."
Art Activity Boxes for Sick Kids
Here in Orange County, we have a small foundation that brings dramatic play into the hospitals. For children who are too ill to participate they provide art activity boxes. I suspect that a social worker at any hospital could arrange for distribution of activity boxes. Here is the program we did.
- First, we invited the K-kids to prepare art activity boxes for sick kids. They quickly embraced the project. The Kiwanis Club provided money for supplies and the kids pledged some of the money they had raised in earlier projects.
- Then we collected art supplies suitable for kids (non-toxic, etc.) and corrugated boxes that are bout 10 x 13 x 2 inches and have hinged tops (available at places like Office Depot). Note that the agency (information below) provided the boxes for us. If another club takes this on, I recommend a box that's a bit bigger so that play doh will fit inside. We had to attach that to the outside, making it difficult to transport.
- Our children decorated the boxes and prepared get-well cards to include.
- We set up an assembly line for the kids to fill the boxes.
Our kids loved the project. They told us that it made them feel really good about making a difference. The cost, exclusive of the boxes themselves, was about $9 per kit. That depends on what is included; ours were very extensive. The kids provided $30 for 15 boxes, giving them a sense of ownership, and Kiwanis provided the rest. Following is a copy of the information provided to us by the agency with which we dealt, Discovery Arts. I think that they are considering expanding to other areas outside Southern California; so you may want to contact them. Information appears below.
I know the the director at the Boys' and Girls' Club where we have k-Kids (we will migrate that group to become a Builders Club in fall) is looking forward to repeating the project. It's very worthwhile and makes both donor-kids and recipient -kids feel good.
Holiday Cards fore Charity
Another great project, which is replicable in other places, happened out of desperation. We had nothing for the kids to do one week and I happened to be at a volunteer fair at the college from which I am retired. I spoke with an agency that sells holiday cards as a fund raiser (Pediatric Cancer Research Foundation), also a local outfit. They use the artwork of children with cancer to produce thousands of cards. The cards come flat in boxes of 1,000 and the agency needs to have them bundled into sets of 17 folded cards. We took 15 minutes that week and had the kids prepare the packets (with their approval, of course).
Here is what we did.
- First we explained the project to the kids. They bought in to it.
- We made it a contest: How many perfect packs can each child make in 15 minutes.
- We had a prize for the winner.
- The kids had such a good time and felt so good about what they did that they asked to do it again, even when I told that that there would be no prize net week (we actually had one).
- We repeated the project the next.
Because we did this late in the year, when there are many year-end activities at the local school, we only had six kids each week. In the total of three kid-work-hours in two weeks, the K-Kids prepared enough sets of cards for the agency to raise $3,500, a pretty good return for youngsters.
In service,
Jeff Dimsdale
Lt. Governor, Division 41
Kiwanis Cal-Nev-Ha District |
